My cousin and I started at the Chaparral trailhead and went up Juniper Canyon. We hiked the loop up the Tunnel Trail and around the High Peaks Trail. This is quite simply an amazingly scenic and very interestingly engineered trail! Love those steep steps cut into the bare rock, and the iron pipe handrails also mounted directly into the rock. Very unique! And there's condors!

Spent an entire day hiking the area. Started at the east side vistors center, up to Chalone Peak, back to the reservior, then up the High Peaks Trail through the weird & wonderful 'pinnacles' before returning to the car. Very unique landscape that's worth taking a day to explore. FWIW: The gates into the park from the campground (east side) don't open until 7AM. FWIW #2: The place is a 'zoo' of dayhikers on spring/fall weekends - go midweek if possible.

New Years Day hike circuit from Bear Gulch round the High Peaks trail and back, great weather and views, lots of interesting exploring to be done along side routes, though atmospheric caves and round tranquil lakes. Lots of other people had the same idea much to my surprise.

The day was cool, and atop the ridge windy at times, but warm in the sun. Pretty much an all-day outing, since we spent some time bushwhacking looking for the start, and rapped seven times. Most of these were with a single 10.5mm x 50m rope, but I carried an 8.5mm x 50m in case we wanted to double-rope rappel. Turns out the second rope was the ticket on the last rap, and if we had broken it out sooner we could have avoided two of the raps.

Not a whole lot of technical climbing (probably a good thing, because I was quite leery of the rock quality), but a fun adventure nonetheless. The morning and evening were cold (hard frost on everything).

After getting out of the Air Force I took a month (?) long west coast trip doing many hikes and climbs. I had heard about this place and stopped by for a day and did a few climbs on the way up to Klamath.

I remember the parking lots filling early with rock
climbers. I saw a lot of huge condors, and itty-bitty
frogs hopping around on the upper reaches of the
Condor Trail. Yes, I think I did glimpse a wild pig
just east of the park. The "Tunnel" is pretty crazy!!!

I've lived in Santa Cruz, Ca for 23 years, so have visited the Pinnacles many times, to hike and to climb. My plans for the near future include checking out the Neglected Valley and the Deserted Valley.

Too many to mention or remember, but mostly on the east side. Most enjoyable climbing is found down low, while most scenic climbing is fouind in the peaks. The question becomes, at least from the Santa Cruz area, should you just push on to Yosemite, Tollhouse, or Castle Rock for that matter, for entirely sweeter climbing or play around on the Pinnacle choss. Nevertheless, it's always a fun, sporty outing.

I am new to the group. I have been to the Pinnacles many times in the mid 90's. I have been in every cave, hiked all the trails and been as high as you can go without free climbing. On a side note I used to be a firefighter in Monterey county. In the early 90's there was a brush fire there. I drove a Airport crash truck to the Pinnacles, not to protect the firefighting aircraft. I was used to wash the firefighting retardant off some of the rock with the high power turret nozzle.

Turned out to be an extremely hot day. "Yesterdays high: 102 F". Dayhiked from chaparral TH to Balconies caves, down W fork Chalone Creek to cholone TH and back to Chaparral. Climbed up some large rocks and boulders for fun. I will totaly have to return here some day for some more hiking and climbing. Chalone peak is also looking like a nice winter dayhike. Get an early start. The parks opening time at 7:30 is almost still too late to beat the summer heat on long hikes.

I went twice in March of 2005 with my brother and law and our wives. The wives did the caves and then waited for us to return from the High Peaks Loop. The shuttle is worth taking when the upper parking lots are full during the peak season as we were passed by a few shuttles while hiking up to the Bear Gulch Visitor Center from the overflow parking area (a scenic 1-2 miles extra). Pinnacles is an exhilerating and scenic place to be on a nice Spring day with a variety of hikes and climbs to satisfy all ability levels. Bring sandals for the caves in the Spring as there is often running water/creekbed (ankle deep in one spot) through the talus caves.